Somehow when “the law” is involved, people confuse their “Fundamental Right” to parent their children with the absolute privilege and responsibility we have to be parents.
The Supreme Court determined in several cases that parents have a fundamental right to parent their children.
This Supreme Court ruling on parenting is important for two reasons.
1. If the two of you decide a parenting plan, no matter how crazy, is in the best interests of your child, the Court will rarely interfere with that agreement.
2. If you can’t decide, most courts, with a great amount of discretion, will often find that your child has a right to be with each of you equally. In other words, do NOT leave it to the courts!!
There is a public perception that the courts favor moms in custody and parental responsibility actions.
The reality is that the court does not care whether you are mom or dad as much as it does for your child and what is in the best interests of your child. As a parent, you can either work with your baby’s father to determine together what is in the best interest of your child or leave it to the court to decide what is best for your child.
More often than not, although this seems to be changing dramatically, mom has the compromised career or makes the children her full-time vocation, while dad is the breadwinner and less available to parent.
From a baby’s first days mom is the primary source of food for the baby. Hard to argue baby shouldn’t be with mom for that. Especially for younger children, it is the mom that the children usually turn to for nurturing and comfort.
Mom is also usually taking care of doctor’s appointments, school schedules, and extra-curricular activities while Dad works, even if Mom also has a full-time job.
People too often confuse the courts favoring Moths with the reality that it was her who provided the lifestyle, routine, and level of care that the child was accustomed to in its daily life.
Generally speaking, the court’s determination of who will be the primary parent is based on who has been the primary parent during the marriage.
The courts take into consideration everything from day-to-day routines to how each parent spends their time with the child;
Does either parent have to work odd or late hours, or travel with his or her career?
Are there significant others and possibly other children that may take away from a parent’s time with his or her kids?
Does a parent have substance abuse or anger issues that prevent a healthy parenting relationship?
Are the children of an age or disposition that requires special care or consideration for parenting time?
Is one parent trying wanting to make a move which would dramatically affect the children’s environment or school and activities?
Sometimes it is human nature to think you must “win” your divorce and that is somehow equated with having more assets and the most time with your child. No one wins in divorce. The reality is, people need to view winning in their divorce as getting out with the least amount of financial and emotional harm as possible.
If you worked full-time during the marriage the court’s may determine that neither parent is currently established as the primary parent so parenting time should be 50/50.
If you didn’t work and maintenance or alimony is not likely, you risk the court finding the other parent as more financially stable and therefore better able to provide a stable and better living environment for the children.
If you are the full-time parent and always have been, you may be awarded more parenting time, but what does that do to your ability to support your family moving forward as a single parent?
The question becomes, what does it mean for your kids?
The primary focus in any shared parenting situation should always be:
HOW DO WE MAINTAIN THE CHILD’S LIFESTYLE WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF CHANGE AS POSSIBLE AFTER DIVORCE?
When you enter into divorce settlement negotiations or, go to court, if you must, as long as you have your child’s best interest at heart – instead of what is best for youpocketbooket book, you will prevail because your kids will move forward with the least amount of disruption as possible.
I’m not certain who said it, but, “in the end it will be okay; if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
It’s funny, I read your post and agree with almost everything you said except the title and premise that there is not bias in favor of moms. I do reach the same conclusion. Separated parents need to find a way to coparent without forcing a stranger to impose a plan that is seldom good for all involved.
I’m a dad with custody of our kids after an ugly custody battle (are any of them pretty?). Honestly, my original goal was to protect my relationship with my kids by forcing my exwife to share custody and parenting time with me as an equal and to keep her from moving away with the kids.
People have used my getting custody as an example that the court system is no longer biased in favor of moms. From my experience in the trenches, I have to say that I disagree. I didn’t get custody because I was a good dad or win a coin toss between equals. I won by addressing the biases and staying in the fight long enough for her to make some mistakes. Without those mistakes, I hope it would have been close, but she probably would have “won”. From the custodial dads that I know, none of them are coin toss winners. For the most part, there is some issue with mom and the remainder put up a determined and capable legal action combined with a mistake or two on mom’s part.
It’s true that the courts follow the laws and legal precidents and if you fit the criteria better, then regardless of gender you will PROBABLY win. The bias is the criteria and the legal precidents (and you’ve given some great examples).
The downside to the presumed custodial privelege that you are advocating is that it forces confrontation rather than cooperation. It cherry picks the past while ignoring the future. Kids need both parents, not one parent and accest to a second class visitor’s wallet. Whatever the division of parenting tasks during the marriage, separated, both parents will have to be 100%. If you didn’t mow the lawn, do the laundry, grocery shop, or service the car before, you will now, and all of the rest.
I think it will be moot in a couple of years anyway. If you watch the trends in family law, the biases are continually being removed and as you said, judges and legislators are starting to throw their hands up and awarding 50/50 parenting.
Ah, the mommy wars. When I was younger, I thought you guys were all on one team. I find it all baffeling and the only common thread I see is insecurity. Can I just say from my team, for the most part, you gals (working or stay-at-home moms) are all doing a fine job. Thanks for bringing the cupcakes (home made or store bought), and organizing the drive to get new laptops for the media center.
Sorry Teddi Ann, but there is still gender bias in the family courts. I went through it with my ex-wife. It’s not 1950, the laws have been cleared of gender specific asssumption, dads can get custody, moms don’t automatically win, and they will allow almost any custody plan if both parents agree to them, but there’s still bias. It’s in the evaluation criteria and it’s in the temporary orders that are seldom apealable. It’s in the incentives to not work together and share parenting. My legal team went after those things with a ferver.
You are right in that goal is to do what is best for the kids, but that if the interpretation of that goal leads justifying of marginalizing or eliminating one of the parents, it’s a hard pill to swallow (at least for me). In my case, my wife clothed her self in best for the kids justification and I knew when she wouldn’t give up one extra day of parenting time in a month under the banner of stablity that we’d end up incourt. In the end, I got custody of our kids, but I can assure you that it wasn’t a battle fought on a level playing field.
Bias still exist, you’re either being an antagonist or facetious to say that it doesn’t. In my experience a lot of judges are in the 60s and 70s in a time when dads worked and moms stayed at home. Tell me there is no bias in their points of view, they rely on case law from over 15 years ago to support their bias or call it law.
Society trends are always changes, the courts never keep up with the change. The bias is still real…